The More You Love Someone
by Rosethorn
Summary: ...the more you want to kill them. Unconnected HarryMurphy drabbles. Very silly. Enjoy. Updated May 1st with a bookverse drabble.
1. Fear Her

My life hates me.

Seriously. Get this. This woman with the improbable name of Elsabetta Charlotte Adeliza O'Conner ("I'm half-Italian, half-Irish, half-gypsy") hired me to do a little gumshoe work for her at generous rates. _Very_ generous rates. Nearly twice my actual rates, as a matter of fact. I asked her once where she was getting the money, since she didn't seem to work, just hung around me and my office. She just simpered.

She actually seemed pretty nice at first ("Oh, please, just call me Lotte!"), but then she just started getting downright _creepy._ Aforementioned hanging around me and my office, blithering on about soulmates while giving me this really terrifying wide-eyed look, getting into trouble and begging me to rescue her. I use trouble here in the lightest of senses. At least one of those incidents involved a paper cut.

I wish I was kidding.

Anyway, it got to be enough. I figured nothing was worth _this_, and quit.

And. She. Kept. Following. Me.

Which brings us to now.

"Harry?" Murph asked me, through gritted teeth. "Can I shoot her? Look, I'm asking nicely and everything."  
How interesting. I hadn't known "Little Lotte" had run afoul of Murph, too. If she'd strained _my_ patience, though, she must have snapped, shot, trampled over and defecated on what remained of Murph's. Tempting as it was to watch her get Murphy'd... "No," I said, and pulled her back against me. "She's still a girl. And you'd get all sticky."

"You and your chivalry," Murph said, but she'd relaxed a little, good-relaxed, not bad-relaxed. "She freaks you out as much as she does me. I don't get why you won't let me slap her with a restraining order." She paused a moment, then added, "Or just slap her. That would work too."  
"Would there be bikinis and mud involved?" I wondered aloud. Murph punched me.

Honestly, though, batshit though she was, Elsabetta Charlotte Adeliza O'Conner was a _looker._ Tall, curvy as a corkscrew and yet fashionably thin, impossibly long blonde hair and enormous violet eyes. If she hadn't been crazy as a crazy thing, and if I hadn't had Murph, I might have taken her up on her several very obvious offers.

But I did have Murph, and let me tell you, there is nothing on the planet that compares to having intimate relations with an aikodoka. Particularly one you happen to be in love with. So Elsabetta Charlotte Adeliza O'Conner didn't stand a chance. Which she seemed to have gotten, actually.

"Speaking of the pest," I said, as the thought occurred to me, "I haven't seen her around in a bit. Have you?"  
Murph leaned her head against my shoulder and thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No. Not since you told her off that last time. Dare we hope she's moved on?"

"Maybe, if we hope very very hard," I began, and got interrupted by the phone.

Lucky me, I have long arms. I reached out and snagged the phone without having to move from my very comfortable position between Murph and the couch. "Yello."  
"Harry," came Thomas's voice, cracked and desperate, "you've got to help me."  
I stared at the phone for a moment, then heard a familiar voice in the background. "Oh, _Tom_-my!"

Poor Thomas.


	2. Homage

He just _had_ to go and get himself kidnapped. What Murphy still can't figure out is why he left the message keyed to _her_, and not Thomas, or Ebenezar, or someone more suited to digging him out of this magical mess he's gotten himself into. It's just coincidence that she happened to be investigating his kidnappers for something entirely different.

Of course, she's found plenty of evidence for her case, too, though she isn't sure how much of it is admissible in court, since she's gotten it primarily by sneaking. Now, though, she's tripped some kind of alarm and is perilously close to being caught. She got lucky, getting caught by a guard only three inches taller than her who happened to be in possession of a keyring. The uniform fits reasonably well, but she can't count on that kind of luck twice, so she's hauling ass.

She skids around a corner, plants a hand on her purloined hat to keep it from flying off, and stops herself by slamming into a wall. There's the door... she fumbles through the keyring, hunting frantically, thinking all the while how very cliché this is. It could only be more overdone if Harry was, in fact, a damsel...

Finally the right key. She shoves it into the lock, turns it, throws a frantic glance over her shoulder. She isn't being chased yet, her stolen uniform has bought her a little time, but she doesn't know what condition he's in, and getting him out if he's hurt could take more time than they have. Maybe she's better off just getting as much ammunition as she can find and making a stand right there...

The door slides open in response to her harsh shove, and she is stopped in her tracks. Harry's asleep, or pretending to be, and goddamnit, he looks cute... she's struck by sudden inspiration. She _is_ blonde, after all, and it's already so cliché.

"I'm Luke Skywalker," she says. "I'm here to rescue you."

Harry opens his eyes immediately, sits up, grins slyly at her. "Hey, aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

It's either kill him or kiss him, and she's gone to far too much trouble to kill him now. At least she shut him up.


	3. Four Lies and a Truth

"Four lies and a truth," I said.

Murph looked at me oddly. "We're going to resort to playing Truth or Dare now? What are you, fourteen?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ha, ha. Look, we've got nearly twenty hours before the wards go down, we've done all the planning we can do without further information and I, for one, am bored. I'd like to hear your ideas."

She folded her hands behind her head and put her feet up on my coffee table. "On second thought, this sounds vaguely interesting. Better than sniping, anyway." She paused, scanning my bookshelves, and added, "And I still can't believe it's possible that you don't have any Terry Pratchett in your paperback collection."

"That would require me to have heard of him." Murph made a face, and I hurried on. "Anyway, the game goes like this; you tell four lies and a truth, and see if the other person can guess the truth. Works best in groups of four or less."

"To prevent default winning, I suppose." She nodded. "All right. You go first."

Uh. Great. I had hoped for a little time to think. "Okay. Uh. Give me a minute." I thought, then said, "All right. One, I brush my teeth with the lights off. Two, the Beetle has an ejector seat."

She snorted a laugh, and said, "You wish."

I grinned. "Okay, so that's a lie, but damn would that be cool. Anyway. Three, I have a crazy ex-girlfriend named Caroline. Four...uh.. hell, I'm running out of things to say here."

Murphy just looked at me, clearly amused. "Well, you've yet to tell a truth. You could try that."

"Let's not get crazy here." I thought a moment more, and had a sudden, awful, wonderful idea. Did I dare say that? What would happen if I did? We'd been through a lot before, and since, and I think she already knew it, even if I hadn't ever actually said it...so did I have the nerve?

"Okay," I said, before I lost that nerve. "Four, I have worn tights before, and five, I'm head over heels in love with you."

She went abruptly very still, none of the little twitches she got as her muscles relaxed. Shit. Maybe I should've said something about Thomas instead...

"Dammit, Dresden," she said, quietly. "You took mine."

I don't think we ever finished that game. On the other hand, though, I don't think I've ever spent a happier twenty hours.


	4. Little Secrets

Author's Note: Post-ep for Second City. Written for 100moods, prompt 32, Embarrassed.

...okay, so she'd taken the damned photograph.

It wasn't as if anyone noticed. She was back in the Captain's good books, and the station just assumed someone'd made the picture gracefully disappear. And she had, hadn't she? It was no longer in evidence, and that was all that mattered.

And if she kept it in a photo album, and took it out sometimes just to prove to herself he really _had_ kissed her, well, that was no one's business but her own.

Besides, sometimes a girl wanted to pretend. It wasn't like he was planning to kiss her for real.


	5. Undignified

Murphy damn near cries from laughter.

"Dammit, Murphy..." Harry starts, from his undignified position.

"Sorry," she gasps. "It's just so... you're so..." and she's off again, collapsing against his front door and laughing like an idiot.

He might be mad at her, but it really is hilarious. It's his own fault, setting a booby trap and forgetting it was there, and he would be dangling from the ceiling if he wasn't so tall, and and wasn't wedged against the floor.

And if it's wrecked his plans for the evening, oh well. It's been too long since she laughed like this.


	6. Asking for Trouble

Murphy stares at him, her expression totally blank. "Dresden, what exactly were you thinking? No, forget that, _were_ you thinking?"

Better to be honest. "I don't think I was," he admits, as the doctor finishes bandaging his arm. "It didn't look all that dangerous, Murph. Really. It was just this pink blob."

"So of course you poked it with a stick." She's still expressionless.

"Well, yeah, it's me," he says. What did she expect?

She must be really mad this time, though. He has to keep himself from asking the doctor to stay and defend him from a Murphying.

She watches the doctor leave, then looks back at him, and a reluctant smile crosses her lips. "A Vermicious Knid, Harry? Really?"

He watches her, watches that smile, and knows she isn't angry, only worried, and a little annoyed because he was stupid.

His heart lifts. He can live with that.


End file.
